All Forum Posts by: Justin Jones

@Jason Gilmore good advice! That's a great idea I never really thought of.

My wife and I are looking to buy our first house and our first investment property this year (so 2 properties). Life has been crazy busy this year. I'm working full time and going to college at night and my wife is working full time. We're currently renting and our lease is up in October. From what I'm hearing and seeing the market is a crazy sellers market right now. At the moment we're just working on saving up capital. We're going to use the VA loan for our home. I would like to get a place that needs some work and that could potentially have a portion sectioned off for short term rentals (or long term... still reading about the STR laws in Virginia Beach). We're pretty set on buying a place in VB. For our investment property we're working on learning the area but we're open to VB as well as Chesapeake, Suffolk, and Norfolk. Looking to network with other investors and learn what the market is like around here. We've tried to go see a few houses but they've sold the first day of being on the market.

As I said, at the moment we're just working on saving up capital and learning the area. We're interested in cash flowing properties above everything else. Our plan is to narrow down our criteria as we continue to look and learn the area. For our investment property I'm honestly considering setting some pretty strict criteria that will guarantee good cash flow and then just making offers on places that meet those criteria/ making low offers without seeing the properties. In the event an offer gets accepted we will have the ability to back out upon inspection anyways. It seems like the only way to get deals right now with how fast offers are getting accepted. Plus a lot less time on our end will be spent physically going to look at houses.

Are there any meetups/ virtual meetups for the hampton roads area? Looking forward to networking with investors/agents/managers/etc. in the area!

@Jay Helms In all honesty the adventure and that island life...lol. When I vacationed there as a kid I told myself I would live there someday. And I have the opportunity to for a few years and see how it compares to vacation (not expecting it to be as good as vacation).And I love surfing and spearfishing and hiking. All things hawaii is great for!

My wife and I are working on building our deal analysis funnel. We have a few area's we're looking into so we're planning on making a different funnel for each location since different things work in different places. Here are the criteria we currently have:

Beds/bath

SQFT

Lot size

Property type

Purchase Price

Approx rehab costs

Cash Flow

COC Return

Year Built

Zip Codes

HOA

Are there any other criteria we should be looking at? Anything I put above that you don't think is needed? Are we doing this funnel thing right?

Thank you so much!!

@Robert Ellis @Zeke Liston Sent you both a message.

 This is super great advice. With the right amount of income and really living frugally it's totally achievable in 10 years.

Duplex in downtown Columbus, Ohio. 4 bed/2 bath per side. Wondering what you guys think of this? I'm currently working on my goal of 100 deals in 90 days. This is the 32nd deal I've analyzed. I started analyzing other markets as I'm interested in what they look like. This is the best deal I've come across so far as long as my numbers look good. I try to be really conservative with my numbers leaving a lot of cushion in case something goes south. The duplex looks like it's in good shape from the pictures I see. Looks like the only thing it needs is a re finish of the wood floors and maybe some fresh paint. The rentals in the area that I see on the MLS that are 4 bed all range from $1900 to $2500.

Also, it took some getting used to but I really like the updated calculator so far!

Edit: One issue I just noticed with the calculator is when I generate a PDF it doesn't show my expenses on the PDF. The total expenses number is correct but when I look at each individual expense they all equal $0.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Quick update on this thread. My wife and I ran some quick numbers (we were very conservative) and if we go to Hawaii and IF she can get a job teaching we can save about $2000/month even if we have to pay rent/ a mortgage. If she can’t get a job we’ll be netting -$2600/month.

If we stay in Pensacola we will be able to save about $4000/month. She has a guaranteed job teaching here already if we stay. That’s also accounting for us having to pay a mortgage.

@Rob King I look forward to hearing from you!

I'm wondering the same thing as I've been looking at houses in Oahu since I may be getting orders there. I see a handful of places that have been listed for 180-365 days.